She Wants To Babaloo, Too

MAUREEN DOWD

Hillary Clinton likes to think of herself as Eleanor Roosevelt. Bill Clinton likes to think of himself as Jack Kennedy. But the couple are a lot closer to Lucy and Ricky.

The Clintons' marital pratfalls seem to be playing out in black and white and Formica.

The I Love Lucy show was driven by this dynamic: Lucy didn't like waiting at home while Ricky was out babalooing and having a glamorous career at the club. She was always conniving to get in on her husband's act. She wanted to be a star, too.

Hillary never wanted to wait in the East Wing while Bill was out babalooing and having a glamorous career in the West Wing. She was always conniving to get in on her husband's act. She wanted to be a star, too.

That is how we always end up tangled in these dizzy policy messes like the contretemps over clemency for the Puerto Rican terrorists.

We keep getting yanked back to the Clintons' kooky connubial deal, which seems much more '50s than '90s. Husband strays. Wife gets mad. Husband brings flowers, and if he's been really bad, earrings, and if he's been really, really bad, the health-care portfolio.

Whenever Bill tries to placate Hillary for his naughty behavior, giving her a political gift in return for a personal betrayal, he turns into a caricature of a bungling '50s husband, losing his shrewd political instincts, doing anything just to get back in her good graces.

Bill repaid Hillary for her 60 Minutes appearance that saved his campaign after Gennifer Flowers by giving her health care (disaster) and going along with her wish to have a female attorney general, who turned out to be Janet Reno (disaster).

Bill can never pay off his debt to Hillary, because he's always falling deeper into arrears. After Hillary had to pay the Paula Jones settlement, and after the Monica humiliation, the sky's the limit on what the president owes his wife as she begins her own political climb.

The clemency flap crystallizes how downright strange it is to hate the first lady running for Senate in a state where she's never lived, while her husband is still in the Oval Office making decisions that have a big impact on New York and that race.

The Clintons deny that they ever talked about the clemency deal -- even though the first lady told Talk magazine that they talk constantly: "I was cutting Bill's grapefruit this morning, and we had the best idea we ever had about day care."

But it's a measure of how much public trust the Clintons have lost that as soon as they say they did not plot the clemency deal to help Mrs. Clinton win the Puerto Rican vote in New York, we suspect that they did.

The Clintons' new dream house in Chappaqua is another part of their wacky deal. So Hillary could hit the right demographics for her Senate bid, and project a wholesome suburban image, the couple bought a house that seems as wrong for them as that Connecticut farmhouse did for the relentlessly urban Ricardos in those late I Love Lucy episodes.

But the most disturbing part of the dream house is its financial strings. The Clintons' resources have been strained by their legal debts. The $1.7 million Dutch Colonial house was financed by Terry McAuliffe, the First Sugar Daddy, who put up $1.35 million of his own money. The businessman has raised millions for the president's campaigns, legal debts and library, and now he's fund-raising for Mrs. Clinton.

Although the arrangement is legal, it is one more large and awkward debt for a couple who never get out of debt, emotional or financial.

Write to columnist Maureen Dowd at The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.